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Lesson Plans

In need of lessons targeted to specific topics or the Virginia Standards of Learning? Our education staff has done all the work for you, utilizing the unique resources of the Museum. While all lessons are targeted to a specific grade level, any unit is easily adapted to suit the needs of higher or lower grades.

Choose from the following:

Freedom Fighters - $10.00
This 55-page unit highlights the achievements of four African Americans and their remarkable struggles for freedom and equality not only for themselves but also for their race as a whole. The experiences of Susie King Taylor, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Robert Smalls are explored through informative essays, copies of primary source documents, memoirs, photographs, and a board game.

The Confederate Homefront - $10.00
Designed to inform students about the daily life and contributions of women, children, and African Americans during the Civil War, this lesson unit covers daily work, reactions to the war, and the dangers civilians faced at home. Other topics covered include inflation, shortages, and substitutions. This extensive unit totals 53 pages, 31 of which are copies of primary letters, documents, and photographs.

Robert E. Lee: Three Complete Lessons - $6.00
Exploring Robert E. Lee as a man and a general, the unit includes an introductory essay offering useful background information on Lee, reproduction photographs, a map of Civil War Virginia and facsimiles of two of Lee’s most famous letters. Fifteen pages of lessons are geared to 4th through 5th grades.

Civil War Medicine: Life Within the Confederate Medical Department - $6.00
This 17-page unit of three lessons covers the treatment of the wounded, contributions of women as nurses, and disease as the number one cause of death among soldiers. It includes an essay on life within the Confederate Medical Department, accounts from five Richmond hospitals, facsimiles of Confederate hospital documents, and a worksheet including the statistics on disease rates among soldiers.

Virginia At War: A Study of the Civil War in Virginia - $12.00Targeting Virginia SOLs VS.1 and VS.7
Consisting of 38 information-packed pages, this unit explores the causes and events leading up to the war by examining the differences between North and South, the compromises aimed at keeping peace during the antebellum period, and the efforts of abolitionists Nat Turner and John Brown. Other topics include secession, the creation of West Virginia, and the role of Virginians Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, and J.E.B. Stuart in the Confederate military. Besides providing background essays on the aforementioned individuals and topics, the unit includes worksheets, maps, photographs, copies of primary source documents and a game.

Nation Divided: A Study of the American Civil War - $12.00Targeting Virginia SOLs USI.1 and USI.9
Chronicling the events leading up to the war, this 46-page unit examines the causes of the war stemming from disagreements between North and South over tariffs, states' rights and slavery. Lessons cover the war itself as well as the roles of Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Frederick Douglass, Robert E. Lee, Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson, and Ulysses S. Grant. Attention is paid to the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address and the correspondence between Lee and Grant at Appomattox. The unit includes background essays, worksheets, timelines, photographs, copies of primary source documents, and a map.